


The Low Bar (Distinctly Underwhelming Expectations)

by myadamantiumheart



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce isn't very good at emotions, Dick is a general ray of sunshine, Jason is suspicious, and Tim stopped expecting things from people a long, long time before he and Bruce were turned into the sort of blood sucking monster that mothers warn their children about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Low Bar (Distinctly Underwhelming Expectations)

They had wanted for months, tried to restrain themselves- they have ached for their people and stood on the edge of the morning sun for years now, forcing their city to continue on with a night government formed from the very nightmares that wrack its streets.

It has been long since they’ve tasted blood still sweet with life, long since there was a willing victim to stay by their side and provide their meals. It has been long, since the Demon’s Head descended upon the city and turned its upper class into these blood-hungry thieves, thieves of life, thieves of innocence with their teeth like wolves and their hisses like the most poisonous of asps.

And still- they have waited, and they have lurked, and it has been mere moons since they have triumphed and known, for certain, that they are the last two left. The last two men of the once-bright reigning class of Gotham. The last two men holding the city together.

It is then that the caravan arrives.

They’re bright and beautiful- but they’re not the kind of bright that drives Metropolis, that makes those sunshine people unable to live in Gotham for the lack of their solar battery. They are moon bright, creatures of the night that thrive on the rays of stars and the amber light of their fire. They are clothed in silver and blue and red, gold and green and garnet, and for the seventh night they camp within the city boundaries, Bruce watches them from the shadows and hungers like he has never hungered before.

They have light wooden trailers for their belongings, for their beds, and their tents raise in impossible onion domes that shine dimly in the moonlight- they laugh and they dance, and Bruce looks at the two boys- brothers? His fingers itch, and his fangs are crawling out from his gums, and he hisses at his own lack of self control. But these boys, these men, these nineteen-twenty-twenty one year olds make him understand what Ra’s had said to him and Timothy before he’d left, smugly, for his compounds.

“One day you’ll find someone, Bruce, and you’ll weep for the loss of your self control,” Ra’s had said, tapping his fingers on the table and smirking out the open veranda window overlooking the grounds of the Wayne Palace. “You will find someone as I found Melisande, and you will ache so badly you’ll have no choice but to bind them to you and make them your constant companion. And you’ll drink their blood whether you like it or not- and then, when they finally grow old and die, you’ll find a new one. That is how we live, Bruce. By counting our age not through years, but through companions we have buried.”

And he and Tim had spent the past four years pretending that Ra’s had never said that, taking blood only where it is not needed any longer; through the deaths they could not prevent, through the hospitals, through the occasional hunting trip in the woods behind their dwelling.

Bruce can feel Tim’s presence behind him, the smaller man shifting slightly in the shadows to make himself known, and then stepping forward to stand beside his mentor.

“What damage could we truly do?” he says, quiet as he has always been; quick to cut to the chase and taciturn in the best of moments.

“And there it is,” Timothy says, turning half towards him, the light of the fire glinting on his deep-sea irises and burnishing his pale jawline like bronze. “You’ve already done it, Bruce, simply by suggesting it. Because I know you would not have even spoken if you hadn’t already decided.” He sighs, the half tilt of his mouth displaying clearly to his mentor his mixed feelings about their involvement.

Bruce knows he wants it; he wants it just as bad, he wants the sweetness of fresh, willing blood, and he wants to company of someone other than Bruce or Alfred. He wants someone to laugh with like Bruce cannot- someone who doesn’t laugh silently and smile like the passing shadow of a cloud on a hilltop. Timothy wants those boys just as much as Bruce does.

And Timothy will have them.

He steps forward into the circle from the shadows and he soaks in the startled gasps like sweet ambrosia, and he extends his hands to the two men with a smile on his face that he knows will make them fear as much as they will want. 

Timothy will have his companions.

-

The dawn is a bloom across the horizon of the city when Bruce returns in the longest and blackest of the cars they own, two wary men in the backseat, their hands straying to each other like a comfort object. Timothy waits for them in the doorway, Alfred still sleeping, and they walk up the steps with something like awe in their eyes- though the shorter one’s awe looks much like wonder and the taller one’s awe looks much like suspicion.

He watches them with his cold, restrained eyes, and he tries not to hope, because they look like everything he’s ever wanted.

It turns out that perhaps, he’s right.

They just might be.

-

He grows to learn the shorter one, Dick, first. Dick is bright and happy and he’s an acrobat by trade- he’s got snake hips and a wide, sunny grin, and he absolutely mesmerizes Bruce. He was born into the caravan to two parents who didn’t survive past his ninth birthday, and he’s the boy that always dreamed of keeping the friends he made at cities on the caravan’s road route. He’s got eyes that reflect blue like the skies over Metropolis, and Tim almost thinks he’d thrive better in that sunshine state. But he doesn’t say that, because Dick is too busy flipping around on the bars in the old chalk hall where Bruce installed equipment for him to keep up his acrobatics on, and Bruce is too busy pretending he isn’t watching like a hawk.

Bruce finds it incredibly strange, having laughter ringing through the halls of the palace- he knows that Tim smiles more, now, and he knows that Alfred delights in having people, actual people, to cook food for. But he’s still not used to the cloud of chalk dust on Dick’s hand and the way Dick leans in close and makes him feel as though he’s the only one in the world. He’s not used to that undivided attention and he’s not used to this companionship.

Tim already knows everything about him; Alfred’s been around this palace since long before Bruce was born. Dick, though, wants to know what his favorite color is. He wants to know the food he liked to eat, back when he was human, and he wants to know if he still watches the sunrise, if he still smells flowers, if he still likes to draw architectural cityscapes in minute detail.

It doesn’t take more than four months before Bruce finds himself remembering the things Ra’s had said about the early days of living with Melisande.

It’s increasingly difficult to not simply grasp the other man’s hips and draw him to his chest, to not simply press his cold mouth to Dick’s shoulder and bite down and finally, finally know for sure what it feels like to have Dick gasp in pain and pleasure against the length of his body.

It’s increasingly difficult to restrain himself, and so Bruce leaves.

-

Jason Todd, former second in command of the caravan’s kitchen, is a suspicious man with little ability to trust and little ability, it seems, to stay still. He’s always moving, whether he’s jittering his knee as he scrawls things on paper at one of the sun-bathed tables in the library, or he’s laughing at some silly joke Dick’s told and pulling himself up on the strong metal bars in the big equipment room. He’s clearly the one Bruce meant for Tim, though Tim can’t imagine why.

The man’s abrasive, sandpaper outer shell and spikes a mile wide, and a tongue quick like a snake. Tim can’t help but counter it, his own oft-forgotten sarcasm biting into the insults Jason slings and returning Tim to the snarky eighteen year old he was when he was turned, before he turned- silent. Jason pretends he doesn’t know that Dick’s falling in love with Bruce and Tim doesn’t pretend anything at all, and while Bruce watches Dick fly through the air, Tim watches Jason close his eyes and take a deep breath and turn to leave.

“Of course I want him to be happy,” Jason says, and Tim almost believes him. “I’m just afraid he’ll break his heart.”

“You’re just afraid he’ll kill Dick,” Tim says, and Jason doesn’t try to pretend that’s not what he’s really afraid of.

“Of course,” Jason says again, turning back to the window and smoothing his rough, calloused fingers over the sill. “But I’ll never be as afraid of that as Bruce is himself, and you know that.”

The next day, Bruce has left the castle, and Tim tries not to think about the months he’s spent slowly and then not so slowly falling deeper and deeper into the ache of wanting Jason as he watches Jason sit on the side of the acrobatic equipment and try to coax Dick down off of it. He wants to kick Bruce, he wants to punch him, and he wants to grab him close and force him to accept Tim’s offer of rare physical comfort.

He wants to force Bruce to bare his fangs and bear their weight, and he wants to rip the shirt from Dick’s torso and hold his wrist out until Bruce can’t control himself and they admit to each other what this whole charade is really about. This facade of the sheer need for more bodies in their castle is useless, a faulty and feeble lie, and Tim is becoming disgusted by the shadows Bruce hides himself in when he could have happiness with less than a word.

With a single gesture.

Because Dick talks with bodies and Bruce talks with actions, and all it would take is a the sweet sharp sting of two fangs to make them understand each other.

It’s a few weeks before Bruce lurks back, and Tim barely resists the urge to shove him up against the wall and glare at him.

“I’m sure you’ll fix this,” he says, passive-aggressively, and he turns on his heel before Bruce can reply.

When Bruce finally does fix ‘this’, he and Dick don’t leave the West wing’s master bedroom for a week, and Jason retreats to Tim’s East wing before the end of the second day or being alone in the central wing.

“It’s disgusting,” Jason says, fake-gagging on the hot chocolate Alfred brought him. “Horrifying.”

“What, the blood?” Tim asks, absent minded and checking over city records.

“No, dipshit,” Jason says, looking at him strangely. “You think I’d still be here if I had a problem with blood?”

“The homosexuality?” Tim’s brow furrows, and he looks up at Jason. “What? Don’t look at me like that, it’s a valid question. What do you find so disgusting about Dick and Bruce being together?”

“You’re an idiot,” Jason sighs, setting his hot chocolate down, “if you think I’m disgusted by  _the gays_. That would just be self destructive and pointless. No, brilliant bloodsucker, what I’m disgusted by is the sappy displays of affection I can practically feel from here. Promise me we won’t be like that, okay?”

“We…” Tim’s brow furrows further, and he shuts the book carefully. “What?”

“Oh god, I’m surrounded by fools,” Jason says dramatically, standing up and taking his cocoa with him. Tim stares even after Jason’s gone.

It had been the figment of an often abandoned mind, the idea that Bruce and Dick would be together, but Jason would overlook the fact that he and Tim had been originally meant for each other as companions. Tim had simply expected that once Jason realized he did not have to be Tim’s companion to live here, he would calm down on the suspicion and relax into a friendship that they could mutually benefit from whilst Dick and Bruce were looking at each other as though they were sappy characters in Alfred’s favorite regency romances.

He had expected that, as everyone else in his life was wont to do, Jason would fall into the pattern of looking at Tim as a background element; to be ignored when not wanted and sought out when, occasionally, one had need of his knowledge.

It made him feel decidedly unsettled to realize that Jason might, perhaps, see him as something other than a house-mate. Decidedly unsettled in a way that made his fingers twitch and his mind race and his distinct lack of success in past relationships play out in his mind all night long.

He’s never expected that his pining will be returned, nor his affections, and he’s not even accounted for the possibility that they are, and now Timothy is thrown off balance. 

It’s getting dark, the next night, and Dick and Bruce have already attended dinner (for Dick only, thank god, because Tim does not want to see Bruce in a debauched, blood-sated state with Dick in his lap, high on the hormone-induced arousal brought on by Bruce’s harmless antiseptic and pain-dampening venom), when Jason finds Tim in his study, sitting on the window seat and watching the moon slowly brighten in the Gotham sky, clouds scudding across the view for short flickers of time.

“It’s not that you don’t want me, is it,” Jason says (states, not asks), walking steadily towards the vampire on the window seat. Tim turns towards him slightly, raising an eyebrow, and he shakes his head. He owes Jason the courtesy of honesty, tonight, and the courtesy of a serious answer as well.

“Of course not,” Tim says, tapping the window lightly and tracing a finger across it. “It’s simply that I wish not to bother you.”

“And if I wish to be bothered?” Jason says, slow and deep, and Tim tries not to shiver. He can hear Jason’s heartbeat, the blood rushing in his veins, and the way his voice resonates through his muscular chest.

“Bothered by my sarcasm, or bothered by my fangs?” Tim asks, turning to face Jason fully and baring his glinting canines.

“Do I get a discount if I ask for both?” Jason murmurs, slipping his hand around Tim’s shoulder and tugging him forward. Tim grasps Jason’s wrists and tugs back, sitting him down on the window seat and slowly, carefully sliding onto his lap.

“Are you sure?” Tim asks, again, his breath ghosting over Jason’s neck, and the taller man shudders, his hips rocking up a little.

“Would you just bite me, already?” Jason’s fingers tangle in Tim’s hair and press him forward, and Tim figures that’s the most he’s going to get before Jason starts to get irritable and defensive and tries to cover up his embarrassment over possibly doing something wrong in their relationship.

“Happily,” Tim almost-slurs, a little drunk on the feel of Jason’s warmth against him. And he opens his mouth, bites down, and Jason shudders.

“Jesus,” Jason groans, and Tim almost laughs- but he can’t, not now, not when he’s so warm, so warm- hot- burning and sweet and salty and full of iron that he can feel flooding his stomach. He swallows greedily, the ache dulling and tapering off in his stomach, and this- he knows, now. He knows, now, why Ra’s had insisted this would be the only way.

He feels like he won’t want for a month, now. Jason’s hands get a little weak on his back, in his hair, and he pulls back, lapping at the wound lazily and sucking the edges of it a little and watching it close up as the bleeding slows. He licks the trails of blood that escaped before the wound sealed and then he tucks his face against Jason’s throat for a moment, wallowing happily in the feeling of Jason’s hand petting his head and pressing their bodies together.

“I’d say that was better than sex,” Jason mumbles into his hair, his grin clearly audible, “but sex doesn’t usually  _leave_  me needing to get off.” He groans against Tim’s cheek when Tim sits up, eyes bright and mouth stained red, slumping back against the cold glass of the window, and Tim knots his clever, pale fingers in Jason’s hair, yanking on it until Jason gives in and kisses Tim full on the mouth. “Fuck, that should be  _disgusting_ ,” he murmurs, Tim’s laughter silent and shaking, and his hands grip Tim’s hips.

“C’mon,” Tim says, soft and hotter than normal, into the curve of Jason’s ear, his mouth, his cheekbone, his jaw. “I used you, it’s your turn now.” Jason’s moan echoes through the room and Tim doesn’t even care because Jason’s grip tightens and he’s rocking Tim down even as he grinds up, his head falling back and Tim’s falling forward with a soft gasp. Jason’s pulse races in his throat and Tim mouths at it as he groans loud and hot, clutching Jason’s shoulders and rocking with the movement of the taller man’s thighs. It doesn’t take long for the man beneath him to gasp out a long, drawn out “Fuuuck.” and come, panting, in his jeans.

Tim watches him with brightly burning eyes, his cheeks flushed with blood and sex, and his stomach full and warm, his hips rocking a little without his permission and his nails biting into Jason’s skin beneath his soft teeshirt.

“Oh,  _baby_ ,” Jason breathes, dragging his hand up Tim’s back. “You’re  _pretty_.”

He laughs softly when Tim shies back, and he presses his palm against Tim’s erection without an ounce of shame, undoing the clasp and drawing him out into the thick, hot air between their bodies, grasping his cock and stroking it until Tim’s squirming and gasping out profanities into Jason’s slick, willing mouth. He comes easy and loud, whimpering as Jason bites his ear and tells him all the things he’s gonna do with Tim on the big, soft bed at the end of the corridor.

It’s not really what Tim expected, but that, he finds, definitely isn’t a bad thing.


End file.
